Have you considered marketing the official Philosophy Now Hemlock Mugs? Marketing would be directed at all those who haven't sold out to the Great Beast and keep Socrates' ideas alive regardless of how they are condemned by the modern secular educated.

Of course these mugs wouldn't really be used for hemlock but since a wise man invented beer, it is a good substitute which a person could use to demonstrate their wisdom

"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Unknown

I think that's a pretty good idea! We already do Philosophy Now t-shirts, why not mugs as well?

I can see it now. The bartender at a local British pub will hold up a Hemlock mug and proudly announce: "Defend Socrates, fill it up." Hell, I'll even join the toast.

it would encourage good thread writing and politeness on the part of the thread owner (to keep people in), and on the part of the contributor (to stay on a thread they like).
If the owner banned capriciously then they would end up with an empty thread. So the mechanism would be self balancing.

I agree.

How would it work - yes that's the difficulty. It would involve some sort of re-programming to the site. I do not think it would be difficult, as I am sure that some other Forums have similar facilities.
But I doubt Rick would want to pay half a day's fee for a tweak to the site.

But thanks for supporting the idea.

This forum is quite rightly open to all.
However, there is sometimes, nearly always, a problem maintaining a thread without personal attacks or irrelevant material. That might, of course, be fun and entertaining - a balance to be kept between what is helpful/harmful.

If the thread starter has to take responsibility, as per guidelines, then some control ( more efficient than reporting function ) should be available so as to limit personal attacks and irrelevant posts by those with bad intent.
Especially those with whom the author has had 'previous' and who continues to be problematic.
However, there seems no mechanism for this. A real pity - that some can't control their obsessive urges/ desire to disrupt just for the sake of it. Most, however, have a kind of unspoken agreement - to agree to disagree or just stay out of threads by posters they find objectionable, for whatever reason.

That's because it's a bad idea as it would just mean thread owners only allowing those who agree with them into the discussion. The forum has a perfectly respectable idea for thread moderation, complain to the mods about posts you object to and allow them to adjudicate. Unfortunately most don't appear to want do the work and many just post the OP and vanish from the conversation.

That's because it's a bad idea as it would just mean thread owners only allowing those who agree with them into the discussion. The forum has a perfectly respectable idea for thread moderation, complain to the mods about posts you object to and allow them to adjudicate. Unfortunately most don't appear to want do the work and many just post the OP and vanish from the conversation.

Yes, that is a concern. Indeed an 'only friends allowed' scenario is not in keeping with the spirit of philosophy.
Clearly, the criteria would not be about discouraging philosophical objections or disagreements.
The thread starter would have to provide sufficient reasons with evidence.
Again, this might not be appropriate - it shuts out the possibility of a change in the previously disruptive behaviour of a poster.
Even if there was the mechanism, which seems unlikely. So much for that.

Another nod of agreement re the ease with which some start threads without any follow through. Some forums have criteria for an initial post, so that it has some philosophical substance to it.
Also, a pre-evaluation of posts by new posters.
Again, all this would add to the mods workload. It is probably easier for them to deal with reports.
For some reason, some see any reporting as being a sign of weakness in keeping with cowardly tale telling behaviour. There have been several in-thread complaints which are never seen by the mods. And so no action is taken. Other than some who decide to leave and others don't even begin...

Ah well, c'est la vie in the English pub.
In reality, the beer would be poured over someone's head.
Or worse...
Cheers

When this forum updates itself, will there be a way in which mathematical equations can be better presented so that they can be better argued and discussed? I have seen some physics forums have this ability, and it may give some better consistency and clarity in the mathematics section, when arguing such subjects.

This is a rather easy fix in the code of the software, but it requires modifying the source code of the software. One line of code is just what is needed to accomplish that! It requires the addition of a link to an online Mathjax library, but that should not be done if one does not know what one is doing, otherwise it might damage the site.

For serious discussions on logic, mathematics and physics, this prove to be a great time saver than having to go to Word or the internet each time to look for and copy/paste the special symbols. And also, it is more aesthetically pleasing when this feature is used.

When this forum updates itself, will there be a way in which mathematical equations can be better presented so that they can be better argued and discussed? I have seen some physics forums have this ability, and it may give some better consistency and clarity in the mathematics section, when arguing such subjects.

This is a rather easy fix in the code of the software, but it requires modifying the source code of the software. One line of code is just what is needed to accomplish that! It requires the addition of a link to an online Mathjax library, but that should not be done if one does not know what one is doing, otherwise it might damage the site.

For serious discussions on logic, mathematics and physics, this prove to be a great time saver than having to go to Word or the internet each time to look for and copy/paste the special symbols. And also, it is more aesthetically pleasing when this feature is used.

Yeah...umm...I am just stupid when it comes to anything relative to programming.

Or just store the characters in HTML, locally, for cut and paste. Why does everyone these days try to make things so over complicated, I'll never understand.

Mathjax notation is very simple to use once you learn the syntax. And there are certain things that can only be displayed with it. For example, suppose one wants to write an integral or summation with limits, I cannot see how one can do that nicely with the current configuration. But I would be wrong if someone shows me how. Of course, I mean nicely and not some practical hacks as that I know how to do already! The copy and paste method is tedious and not very elegant on display. Mathjax also makes working and displaying matrices very easy. There are other things as well. This is not at all intended to be an exhaustive list of the capabilities of mathjax.

The problem here lies in configuring the forum software to use the online mathjax library. If management can modify the software on the server itself, then it is simply a matter of putting the link in the appropriate header of a particular php file and saving it. Otherwise, one has to use another software such as filezilla to download the appropriate php file, modify it locally on the computer, and then reload it to the server. If one is not much into mathematics, this elaborate process can be seen as a great hurdle to provide this extension. And besides, I can understand the management, as only few here would be using the mathjax functionality! So the return on the investment would be slim for the management! It's then just down to the love of mathematics and beautiful notation.

There is also the option of installing the mathjax file on the server itself such that it then becomes part of the forum. But the online free library is by far an easier and faster solution to get it going.

It management needs help, I can provide a detailed procedure on how to do this, as I already did this before.

As a programmer, I like to keep things simple, is all I'm saying. I have enough languages to bothered with more.

Of course simplicity is always preferred in implementation but as far as possible not to the point of changing user requirements! Anyway, as a programmer all this configuration will probably take you at most 15 minutes, as nowadays I don't think any programmer can offord not to know some PHP or html or javascript! And learning the mathjax syntax would probably take anyone about some 30 minutes and I am being very generous here. This is just to say that the installation and use of mathjax is already aim to simplify things. It will only be a problem for one who does not have some programming skills. Here I was assuming it was the case of the management, and this is alright because if everyone could do their own programming, you would be out of work!